caring for seahorses

Yes I have. I started out with 8 of the little guys, raising my own shrimp daily/over the night so I wouldn't have a huge waste of brine considering they are the most nutrient after hatching and the 1st gut loading of them. Then before I knew it the numbers kept growing and growing.
The dwarf seahorse is very easy to keep if you don't mind the care in hatching live foods for them. They are a lot cleaner eating also. No clean up needed. What they don't eat usually is swimming around to be eaten later, or goes down the filter to cycle on through. I think the 1st 8 that I did have, not a one of them had the same color or markings. They were so cute.
They do require a tank that is solely for them, lots of hitching post for them to hid on. Preferring the gorgonian species that you can get in many colors from online wholesalers and the macroalgae species that can also be found online from wholesalers.

I do have one concern about these little guys though. I just wonder if they are not many of them wild caught. I made a mistake of putting them in with some of my H. Erectus that I have had for 2 years. They were 4 pair (8 erectus). About a week after introducing them into the tank with the Mustangs, they started showing signs of stress and disease. I lost 2 of the females from the pairs of H. Erectus and decided to take out the dwarfs and put them back into their tank. The stress of the H. Erectus disappeared and all else was fine. I didn't have to medicate the others or anything. Still both species are doing fine. All that is needed is the necessary water changes and maintenance on the filter media/poly. A puzzling incident, but I learned when it says species only, it means that exact species; especially for the dwarf seahorses. Some exceptions are to the rule for the larger subtropical and tropical species of seahorses.

 

A lot of these guys are wild caught though captive bred and raised ones are readily available. however, this is not one species I feel bad for taking out of the wild. They aren't in any danger if over fishing, because so few people have a desire to keep then and even fewer LFS will ever stock them due to their care requirements. They also live in a zone of the ocean that is highly susceptible to human disturbance and waste...right up and close to the shoreline. It's significantly more likely that pollution will wipe this species from the wild long before any effects are noticed from aquarium motivated pollution.

Every person I've met that has successfully kept these guys has also bred them and given/sold them to other local keepers...adding wild caught individuals ensures a strong genetic pool will be had for your breeding stock.


On a scale of 1-amazing, this species is rediculous. With the giant oil spill in the gulf...all I could think was...what about the Zosterae.

 

When you're trying to seal the deal, the only thing better than having a puppy at home is a tank of seahorses, and the only thing better than seahorses...is dwarf seahorses.

By seal the deal, I mean...make him/her think you have awesome taste in pets.

 

That is true. They do come in danger more so rather than the larger scale seahorses. Very rarely will a large seahorse come in contact with each other especially to a human fishing or diving. To see a wild seahorse that is in deeper waters would be a rare experience. You would just about have to be searching your heart out for one. I agree also that the Zosterae isn't harmed by catching wild ones to raise in the home aquarium. It does out compete the wild ones in survival after giving birth to them in a home aquarium, especially when you are dedicated enough to raise the food for them and give them aperable water perameters. As many oil spills that are happening these days, it is wise to have saved as many as possible because they would be more likely to be wiped out from the local pollutants and oils that spill into the waters, preditation, and even boating incidents from the motors propellers. I too wonder about lots of animals that are harmed and even brought to their demise during the oil spills in the gulf and other parts of the world from oil rigs.
It is hard to get a LFS to buy them due to their high demand for fresh live foods, and their lesser demand than the larger ones, but in my opinion they are a lot easier to breed and raise to an old age. The do their thing, when larger ones tend to miss the "hole" in passing of the eggs, and have to try again when she is ready again. Then you have to also provide live foods daily and train them to eat frozen foods as they age; which at that time, they tend to start getting diseased, and "drop like flies".

Thanks for posting and the videos. They were most interesting and had lots more links attached in Youtube that was very informative and interesting.

Regards,
DavidCox1979

 

WOW this is a great thread,I was also throwing the idea of raising seahorses but this has opened my eyes to the hazards and care they need,it's to bad they don't do better in captivity

 

If you research properly and go by the recommendations and buy ONLY true captive bred, not tank raised or wild caught, you can have a very rewarding experience but be prepared to keep water quality above that of a reef as any little pocket of uneaten food or detritus trapped out of sight can be the start of bacterial problems that can many times wipe the tank.
I reserve the term "tank raised" for those seahorses raised in ocean water than has not been properly treated and filtered for pathogens.
These are the cheaper more commonly sold seahorses by LFSs in North America, and most are sourced off shore. The primary destination of these seahorses are for the Asian medicine trade and some get siphoned off for the hobby. It is not economically feasible for them to treat the water properly when most of the production goes to the medicine trade and not the hobby.
"True captive bred" term is reserved for those seahorses raised in water made from commercial salts, or raised in ocean water properly treated and filtered for pathogens.
Places selling True Captive Bred are seahorsesource.com, pekasponies.com, and seahorsecorral.com.
A few LFSs lately are getting access to H. reidi and H. comes that are bred and raised in Sri Lanka by Aquamarine International with a state of the art treatment facility.
The bad part is that many LFSs have been told the tank raised they buy for resale are true captive bred and they repeat that to the buyers. Then again, many know this and STILL claim their seahorses are True Captive Bred.
They should be able to identify the breeding source and give you enough information to be able to verify independently that they truly are.